Beartown: Chapter 39 Summary & Analysis

A town councilor is on the phone, explaining to Tails that they can’t build a new hockey academy in Beartown in light of the accusation against Kevin. Tails knows what that loss would likely mean for the town—an economic collapse. He’s always believed that hockey allows the town to dream, but if the town stagnates, it will die. Peter comes into Tails’s supermarket then, but he shakes his head when Tails starts to approach him. Soon Tails goes shamefacedly into his office.

Kevin’s dad drives to the Hollow in his expensive car. He picks up Amat. He tells Amat that he grew up in an apartment block much like these, with a single mother. He knows about Fatima’s back trouble and says that he could arrange for her to see a good physiotherapist. After all, people in Beartown are supposed to look out for each other. He also offers Amat the business card of a personnel manager in Hed. Fatima can interview for some office work there. Then Mr. Erdahl falls silent, “as if that were the whole purpose of his visit.”

Just as Amat is about to get out of the car, Mr. Erdahl tells him that though he might have thought he saw something at Kevin’s party, drinking puts strange ideas in people’s heads. He also asks abruptly if Amat is in love with Maya. Amat’s eyes fill with tears. Mr. Erdahl tells him that girls do strange things for attention, and that someday, when he turns professional, he’ll understand that girls like Maya aren’t to be trusted; “they’re like a virus.” Mr. Erdahl gives him five thousand-kronor notes for new skates and tells him the team needs to stick together. He growls like a bear and drives off.

Amat watches as the expensive car drives off. He doesn’t notice the cheaper Saab parked some distance away. Amat stands there for a long time, then wipes his eyes, drops something in the snow, and walks away. Eventually, the young man who’s tinkering with the engine of the Saab walks over and picks up a handful of crumpled, sweaty kronor notes from the ground. He puts them in his pocket. Amat goes home and looks at his too-small, peeling skates.

The hockey team is having an optional training session in the forest. Mr. Erdahl drops Kevin off there, and his teammates cheer. David shakes Kevin’s and his dad’s hands. The club president is standing at the forest’s edge, and he meets David’s eyes briefly before going back to his office. If Kevin had come to the rink to practice, they would have had to say something about “principles and consequences,” but the president can’t stop a training session in the forest—“that’s what they all tell themselves.”

Kira takes the garbage out, a chore that used to be Maya’s, but it’s different now. Kira smells coffee from a neighbor’s house and wishes someone would invite her over—shared coffee being the customary gesture of hospitality in Beartown. But no one does. Meanwhile, across town, Mrs. Erdahl takes out the trash. One neighbor’s door, then another and another, opens as people invite her over for coffee.